Pentagarn

My wife just got me a SousVide Supreme for my birthday, so I'm happily trying various dishes in it. So far, everything has been great. I just picked up a nice wagyu chuck roast at the butcher today that I'd like to sous vide, but I haven't found many details online for this cut. Douglas Baldwin's guide makes a passing mention of cooking it at 131-140°F for 24-48 hours. With this being wagyu, should I aim for the low end of that and do it for 24 hours at 131°F? Would it work better to finish it with a hot pan-sear, or in a hot (450°F) oven for a few minutes? Should I brine it first, or will all that nice marbling keep it sufficiently moist? I'm sure this can be tasty, but I'm trying to get some guidelines so I don't mess anything up too badly.

I made myself a Chocolate / Lemon Doberge cake for my birthday. I used to love these as a kid when we'd visit family in New Orleans, but they don't seem to be made anywhere else in the country. I made this with 8 layers of cake. The chocolate side is filled with chocolate pastry cream, iced with chocolate french buttercream and covered with dark chocolate ganache. The lemon side is layered with a kind of thickened lemon curd, iced with lemon french buttercream and covered with white chocolate ganache. (Yes, I know, heart attack!) The half-and-half aspect made this cake far harder than I thought. I used plastic wrap to keep the fillings separate, but that didn't work for the buttercream. Pouring the ganache was even worse - my girlfriend and her sister held some thin utensils in place to try to keep it from going on the wrong side. It didn't come out looking great, but no one minded. It was delicious anyway.

Phew, those are some heavy pieces! I wasn't too worried about it (though maybe now I should be), but my girlfriend had some concerns about them, especially when they're full of food. Hopefully it'll work, because I ordered the 11" frying pan and 11" saucier. I had already ordered an 11" lid from the Sitram Catering line from the site that Octaveman posted. I'll see if that works first - can always get another lid if it doesn't work out. Thanks everyone for the help and advice!

Does anyone have one of Falk's "stewpan" pieces? They're the same dimensions as the sauciers, but with two small loop handles instead of one large one. It seems like they'd be easier to move around, which is a good thing if the 11" one weighs upwards of 8 lbs. Also, where might I be able to get compatible lids for the Falk pans, if I go that route? I don't see the advantage of their copper lids; it seems like a stainless steel one would suffice.

Thanks for all the responses! So a poelle is basically a frying pan with higher, sloped sides? But lower sides than a saute pan? I'm trying to picture it. I don't do a lot of tossing with my pans right now - even when I'm doing something like stir-fry, I usually flip/mix with a spoon or spatula. Could be my technique needs work, though, so that might be useful. Falk saucieres look like what the Cookware class calls a curved sauteuse evasee. Great, I'm glad someone can recommend it. I might be able to afford more than just 1 or 2 pieces at those prices. Do you think the fully-clad sides are important in a straight-sided saute pan for evenness of heat? Or is it just the weight and balance you prefer over the disk-bottom variety? Seems like a pretty big price difference between them, so I'm curious how much it matters. If I just want to brown meats and throw them in the oven, would a cast-iron pan be better? Are there any foods for which a copper-lined frying pan is best and a sauciere / saute pan wouldn't be almost as good? I usually use my saute pan when I'm cooking meat or vegetables and plan to make the sauce in the same pan, and it seems like either a sauciere or saute pan would work for that. I just don't know which is better in general. I have that 5-qt enameled cast-iron dutch oven for making larger batches of soup or stews, so I figured a 2-qt would work for smaller portions. 3-qt might be fine, too. What exactly are the advantages / disadvantages of the straight-sided sauce pan shape vs. the curved sauciere (sauteuse evasee) in the same capacity?

I read through the Understanding Stovetop Cookware class, which was really great and filled with a lot of useful information. I need a bit of help figuring out what would work best, though. I bought a set of Circulon non-stick cookware from Costco right out of college. I've been cooking more and more each year since then as my interest grows, and those pots and pans are now beginning to wear. The frying pans and saute pan aren't very non-stick anymore and the 2- and 3-qt saucepans have nicks and chips on the sides and bottoms. The only relatively unscathed piece is a 9-qt stock pot I mostly use to boil pasta or, well, make stocks. I also just bought a Chefmate 5-qt enameled cast iron oven that serves well for stews, chili, and other slow-cooking. I'd like to get some nice pieces that will last a long time and work well for a variety of food styles. I'm still learning a lot about cooking, so there are a number of things I don't do a lot now - for instance, making delicate sauces like hollandaise - that I'd like to be able to do someday. My thoughts on what to get right now are: - 11" Falk frying pan - 11" Falk saute pan OR 11" Falk Sauciere (Which is of these would be more useful?) Those sizes and styles seem like the most generally useful in the kinds of cooking I do now. After that, I'm not sure. Ideally, I'd like to get at least a 2-qt or 3-qt saucepan for small batches of sauce or soup, too. It seems like the Sitram Profiserie line is pretty good for saucepans, right? Or would a smaller saucier work just as well for most applications? Any thoughts?